


Anything But to Breathe

by inkjunket



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Community: wip_amnesty, M/M, commuting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:44:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkjunket/pseuds/inkjunket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi,” Stiles says, giving a lame little half-wave. “Sorry, is this seat taken?” He tries his most winning Stilinksi family smile. </p>
<p>The guy pauses, flares his nostrils, and says, “No,” like it pains him to say it, and then turns to look out the window.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fire_juggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_juggler/gifts).



> Posting for WIP Amensty 2014. The story in a way could end where it ends (or with a little more), except that I had such big plans for this story. It was my happy place for a long time, which meant there's a lot of backstory that's not on paper, so... it was time for me to own that it will likely forever be a wip, and to set it free. 
> 
> Thanks SO much to fire_juggler for encouraging me while I was writing it back in 2012. Look, FJ, I posted it! \o/
> 
> This is a Teen Wolf AU in which werewolves still exist but are not known, basically in line with the regular Teen Wolf universe, except that it doesn't take place in Beacon Hills, CA, but in Boston, MA, where Stiles is working for the summer (in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston -- ha, that was the starting point for this story). Scott and Stiles grew up together elsewhere, but after they went to college, Sheriff Stilinski and Melissa McCall got married and moved to a suburb of Boston. 
> 
> The title is from the song When You Love Somebody by Fruit Bats, although it lived on my hard drive as COMMUTERFIC.

It’s the first day of his summer MSW practicum, and Stiles is going to be late. He sends his bike careening around cars and through near-red lights and is rewarded to find the commuter rail train hasn’t yet left the station when he pulls into the Waltham Center parking lot. He throws his bike into a bike rack, slaps the lock on, and pelts up the steps and onto the train, throwing an apologetic grin at the conductor waiting to close the door behind him. 

Inside, the train is relatively quiet, except for the rumble and squeal of the wheels on the tracks, and the excited chatter of a small group of kids on a summer camp field trip at one end of the car. Stiles hefts his backpack over his shoulder and takes a deep breath at having made it, reveling in the air conditioned bliss of the train, before making his way down the center aisle to find a seat. It’s rush hour, so it’s crowded, and Stiles has to walk through one car and halfway through the next before he finds a free seat which he collapses into gratefully, catching his breath and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his currently unbuttoned button-down shirt, which he really hopes will somehow become less sticky by the time he gets to the office. He settles his bag on the floor in front of him before turning to smile hello at the person in the seat next to him. And then his mouth goes try because whoa. He’s managed to pick a seat next to some kind of GQ model, decked out in a charcoal gray suit that shows off a whole lot of well-muscled arm and broad shoulders, and a blue tie that perfectly matches a pair of gorgeous blue eyes. Eyes that are currently glaring right at Stiles.

“Hi,” Stiles says, giving a lame little half-wave. “Sorry, is this seat taken?” He tries his most winning Stilinksi family smile. 

The guy pauses, flares his nostrils, and says, “No,” like it pains him to say it, and then turns to look out the window. 

It’s an awkwardly silent fifteen-minute train ride after that, which Stiles would think was only awkward on his end, except for the tense way the guy’s sitting stiffly in his seat. Maybe he doesn’t like crowds. Stiles can relate. 

When the train pulls into Porter, Stiles is quick to get out of his seat and out of the guy’s way and head down from the commuter rail platform to the T. The escalator at Porter is about a mile long, and he flings himself down it along with a frantic crush of fellow commuters as the announcement chimes informing him that the next Red Line train to Ashmont is now arriving. 

He skids to a halt only once he’s on the train, and scrambles to find a pole or strap to hold onto, but with everyone packed in like so many sardines in a tin can, he’s still completely unanchored when the train starts to move. It starts up with a jerk that has him faceplanting into the chest of the guy in front of him. He feels strong hands clamp down on his shoulders, steadying him, and when he looks up, it’s his hot seatmate from the Fitchburg line, who seems to have no problem keeping his balance without holding onto anything at all, and is glaring at him again. Stiles gives him another pathetic half-wave and opens his mouth to thank him, before the train lurches again and he finds himself clinging to the guy’s arms. The guy gives an amused kind of snort and shifts backward slightly, which gives Stiles just enough room to get his balance again and reach out for a nearby poll. Stiles clings to it as he feels his face turning beet red, and carefully avoids eye contact with the hot guy again. He flees without looking back as soon as the train pulls into Park Street. 

He is not late to his first day, for which he thanks the transit gods, and in the hectic crush of meeting everyone at Beacon Hill House (the group home for LGBTQ youth where Stiles is working this summer), and setting up the schedule for his group sessions, at least one of which he’ll be leading solo by his second week, oh my god, and learning all the administrative ropes, he manages to almost forget his horribly embarrassing flailing interaction with an extremely hot model during his morning commute. 

**

The next morning, Stiles flops into the first seat he sees before turning to find his seatmate is Captain Surlypants from the day before.

“Oh god,” Stiles yelps involuntarily, and starts to get back up. “I’ll sit somewhere else.” 

“It’s fine,” the guy says, voice a growl in a way that suggests it’s not really fine. But Stiles is kind of grateful to have a seat, so he focuses on getting out his commuter pass, avoids further eye contact, and makes sure not to end up on the same subway car as the guy when they transfer.

**

The third morning of his practicum, Stiles checks the first empty seat he finds to make sure it’s free of surly seatmates, and it is, so he heaves a sigh of relief, and sits.

**

By Friday, he’s reading a goofy text from Scott about how magical and amazing Allison is and how Stiles had better remember to get fitted for his suit for the wedding, so he forgets to look anywhere at all as he gets himself settled into a seat. He only comes to when he turns to look out the window and is confronted with an eyeful of Mr. Cranky GQ Model, who’s glaring at him. 

“Augh!” Stiles says, and then, when this garners a raised eyebrow from Mr. Cranky, “I swear I’m not stalking this seat or anything, ok? It’s just the only free seat in this car, and I really like to sit down so I don’t fall over, which you’ve already witnessed, and which happens quite often because I’ve been told I’m not going to win any prizes for grace and balance. I’m sorry about that again, I hope I didn’t get like, a sweaty face print all over your suit the other day. Which, by the way, nice suit.” And then Stiles clamps his jaw shut because his babbling is probably not attractive. (Not that he wants this guy to be attracted to him. Is he attractive to hot surly models in suits? Unlikely.) But then, before he can stop himself, he sticks out a hand and says, “Hi. I’m Stiles.” 

The guy looks at him with a kind of bemused expression for a moment, before taking his hand and giving it a shake. He says, grudgingly, “I’m Derek.” Derek’s hand is dry and strong, with a firm grip and callouses. And his eyes are really blue and slightly less frowny than before. Stiles feels his stomach flip. 

“Hi,” Stiles repeats. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Derek says dryly, but his eyes drop to Stiles’ mouth for a fraction of a second before he turns to look back out of the window. 

Stiles pulls out his phone to read an article that his eyes don’t follow. Stiles knows that he has a predilection to developing crushes based on flimsier excuses than a solid handshake, a gorgeous face, and a surly disposition, and that he really should have learned how to resist this by now, but his heart doesn’t stop racing until they reach Porter. 

** 

The following week, Stiles sites next to Derek every single day, because 1) the seat is always free, and 2) life is short, and 3) Derek is ridiculously good-looking. And smells really good. And doesn’t seem to really mind that Stiles enjoys chatting at him about his bike ride, the weather, his dad’s horrible breakfast habits, and anything else that occurs to him as the coffee kicks in and he wakes up officially. 

And if they wind up getting on the same subway car together at Porter more days than not, with Derek standing beside him and smirking if he falls sideways as the train starts to move, Stiles isn’t going to question it. Even though it means his crush is blossoming into some kind of champion hundred-year bloom situation. 

**

Derek saves Stiles’ seat for him. Stiles realizes this when he boards the train and heads for their usual car to find another guy leaning like he’s about to plunk down in the seat next to Derek. He feels his heart sink pathetically a little, because sitting next to Derek for 15 minutes is kind of something he’s started to really look forward to these last couple of weeks. 

But then Derek looks up at the guy, and his eyes flash an impossibly brilliant shade of blue, and he draws his teeth back in a snarl, saying something Stiles is too far away to hear. The guy scurries off down the train. 

Wow. Derek’s eyes, the snarl, and a few other various and sundry warning bells start ringing in Stiles’ head -- sniffing, so much sniffing. He thinks through the lunar calendar that he’s had in the back of his head since Scott was turned, and realizes that yup, tonight is a full moon, prime time for surly, hot, apparent werewolves to lose their cool. How had he not put this together sooner? 

Someone coughs an “excuse me” behind him, and he realizes he’s stopped in the aisle and is blocking traffic. He moves, heading towards Derek and hoping he won’t get the same reception as the other guy, but apparently he doesn’t rate on Derek’s full-moon-stranger-danger scale. All he gets is a frown and a sigh as Derek moves his bag off of Stiles’ seat. 

**

Stiles has a long day which ends with a session with a kid who ran away from home with good reason, and hearing the whole story leaves him feeling wrung out and wondering if he can actually cut it as a social worker, because being a teenager sucks plenty without all the horrible shit that life can throw at you, and Stiles doesn’t know if he’s doing any good at this job. 

He winds up halfway down the relatively deserted platform at Park Street, having just missed the train to Alewife, staring blankly at his schedule for the next day. 

“Hey,” says a gruff voice behind him, and it’s Derek. His tie is gone and his suit is a little rumpled, but he still looks thoroughly lickable, and way more put together than Stiles on his best day. 

“You look tired,” Derek says, and Stiles is more than a little surprised at the concerned tone in his voice. 

“Long day,” Stiles says, and then, because Derek cocks his head a little to the side like he actually wants to hear more, “Ever feel like human beings are the cruellest beast in the animal kingdom?”

“You have no idea,” Derek says, with a small half-smile. 

They wind up sitting in a weirdly companionable silence side by side on the train to Porter, even though the car is half-empty. Stiles would normally feel compelled to fill the void with some conversation, but Derek seems completely comfortable with not talking, and Stiles is too tired to not feel grateful. When they transfer to the commuter rail, Derek snags one of the sets of seats that face each other, propping his legs on the seat across, and Stiles joins him, feeling a little silly, sitting facing Derek and kicking up his feet too. But when Derek wishes him good night with another tiny half-smile as they pull until Waltham, Stiles feels like his faith in humanity (or at least werewolf-itude) is restored just a bit.

**

It turns out Derek is a lawyer. Stiles isn’t sure why this is a surprise to him, but -- “Doesn’t that require you to speak in more than just monosyllabic three-word sentences?”

Derek snorts and rolls his eyes away to the window.

“Not helping your point much here, Mr. Sour McSurly, Esquire.” 

Derek turns back and bares his teeth. “I can be … persuasive.” His voice is a low growl, and Stiles feels his pulse stutter in his throat before sending a rush of blood to regions that should not be standing to attention so easily while on public transit. 

He coughs, crosses his legs, and throws his hands up in surrender. “I’m sure you can! Be intimidating, at least. Not so sure about persuading anyone of anything except that you’re capable of tearing them limb from limb.” 

“You seem like you’d be good with kids,” Derek says, out of nowhere, because Stiles really had thought Derek hadn’t been paying any attention to Stiles’ babbling the last couple of weeks about his MSW practicum, and his doubts about whether he’d made the right decision about what he wanted to do with his life. Whether he could really make a difference for anyone of these kids. 

“Thanks,” Stiles says, awkwardly, and feels himself blush a little. 

“Oh and hey,” Derek says, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a business card, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, in case any of your LGBT kids ever need free legal help, we do some pro bono work.” 

Stiles takes the card, and feels his brain stutter at the pink upside-down triangle logo next to the name Lesbian and Gay Legal Defense Fund with “Derek Hale, Attorney at Law” underneath. 

“You can have them call me, and I’ll help get them to the right people. You can pass it along to other staff too.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, mouth a little dry, because hot, and a gay rights lawyer. And then, because he has no brain to mouth filter, “Want to go get coffee?”

“Yes,” Derek says, and wow, his actual full-blow smile is so incredible it takes Stiles’ breath away a little bit.


	2. Scott & Stiles' back story

And it turned out that while Scott’s dad hadn’t been a bad person or anything, he had been an actual fucking monster. He’d been killed by another omega wolf in a territory dispute not long after Scott was born, and Melissa McCall had been left with a baby who, for all that his dad was a werewolf, looked perfectly human, and so she’d kept this secret to herself.

Until one day after school in 7th grade, when Stiles had gone to wrestle the video game controller away from Scott and had suddenly been pinned to the floor with a snarl and gotten an eyeful of sharp canines and inhumanly yellow eyes. His (embarrassingly panicked) shriek had brought Mrs. McCall into the room running, and that had been the beginning of Stiles’ world getting turned on its head. 

It turned out Stiles’ dad had been anticipating something like this too, because he’d been on the force when Mr. McCall had died, and with all the weirdness involved in the crime scene and Melissa needing someone to talk to, it hadn’t taken long to get the full story. So both Stiles’ parents had ended up knowing, and they had been tight, and Scott and Stiles had basically been raised together, with all three adults wondering what might happen, and when, and if, but not knowing anyone to turn to but each other for answers.

Stiles decided this story was nice and all, but he had the internet on his side, and he might not be getting the best grades in school even now that they’d gotten his ADHD diagnosed and he’d started to get a handle on it, but if there was one thing he was good at, it was researching the hell out of weird stuff. They learned how to keep Scott’s change under control, and pretty soon even the full moon was no big deal, even though Scott usually had to stay home “sick” from school a day or two around the full moon. In the evening they would stay in and watch nice soothing cartoons with Scott handcuffed to the radiator for good measure those first few months. 

And really, it ended up not being that big a deal. Scott was still basically a goofy but loyal and loving kid, and Stiles’ best friend, and that was that. 

When Stiles’ mom got sick, the whole “my best friend’s a werewolf” thing got relegated to the back burner, and it had never really been a top concern since then. Scott was always by his side in the months after she died, a constant, quiet presence. They got older, and somewhere in there, Scott became not just his best friend, but family. 

And then their junior year in college, their parents finally got a clue (or maybe they’d been developing a clue for a while, Stiles didn’t really want to know the details), and Melissa and John had a nice little wedding and moved to Boston, to be closer to their sons, with Scott at school in Maine (he couldn’t help that he had an affinity for the woods, really), and Stiles not too far in Rhode Island that they couldn’t meet up in between for a now-actually-bros-for-life weekend hangout at their folks’ new place in Waltham.


	3. so much more in my head

And then there's all the other stuff that didn't get written out. Boyd, Erika, and Isaac all live on the Hale preserve in Lincoln, MA (a couple more stops out on the commuter rail), and they're all lawyer werewolves too. Boyd works half of the time at the Lesbian and Gay Legal Defense Fund with Derek (which means there's a great scene where he finally gets to meet Stiles on the train and Derek is embarrassed because obvs he has a huge crush on Stiles and has told everyone about it, but Stiles doesn't know this and thinks Derek is just being weird, and Boyd just laughs at them both... etc.), and the other half of his time is spent with Erika and Isaac for the Hales' environmental law firm, which is a cover for being legal aid for werewolves and other supernatural beings. 

Also Scott comes home for his wedding with Allison... there's a day when the commuter rail has major delays because of a downed tree so Stiles asks Scott to come pick him up at Porter and offers Derek a ride as well. Derek and Scott wolf out at each other when Derek gets in the car, and Stiles is all, "whoa, shit, right, I forgot to mention -- you guys are both wolves, don't kill each other, Derek, this is my stepbrother and best friend Scott, who is a True Alpha, and Scott, this is my, uh, friend, Derek... he's a .. beta? Of the Hale pack, right?" and Derek is all, "what." and "how did you know I was a werewolf?" etc. 

So many things. Anyway. I hope if you made it this far that you enjoyed this fic as much as I have playing in it. But the likelihood of me finishing it is super low. Sigh.


End file.
